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After having such a tough year, when January 1st came, I was desperate for some sort of good omen—maybe not necessarily openly desperate, but deeply and truly desperate.

Can I trust that 2018 will be as good as I believe it could be and should be?

Lucky me, on New Year’s Day, I read this horoscope from The Numinous for Capricorns/Capricorn risings. I latched onto it. Every sentence I wanted to tear apart and consume. Two weeks later, I still feel like that.

The image was for the horoscope: “A cardinal dips and dives to the next tree branch.”

—

birds, birds, birds

Ever since I’ve moved to Florida, I’ve become an amateur birdwatcher. With so many birds, both of the everyday and the exotic variety, it’s so easy to see birds that I had never seen when I used to live in Chicago.

In my backyard, there are a bevy of birds that come by: hawks, blue jays, sparrows, mourning doves, and cardinals. Along the wooden fence, I’m sure to see both male and female cardinals, flirting or avoiding each other, flitting about in the air or to the ground. They all hang out in the tangled, sprawling overgrowth of a sweet almond bush.

On New Year’s Day, it was exceptionally overcast, with unrelentingly leadened skies loomed overhead. It was not the cheery scene I wanted to wake up to after having a bit of pink bubbly the night before, drinking away the misery and disappointment of 2017.

I can’t remember if I read the horoscope first, and saw the cardinal or the other way around, but I saw a plump, bright red cardinal on the fence. Its plumage seemed exceptionally bright in contrast to the almost white skies of late morning. It was either a harbinger or confirmation of that astrological weekly message.

The horoscope explains the etymology of the word cardinal. It comes from Latin root word for hinge.

What doors are being open for me right now? Are they doors that I have been waiting to open for months and years? Or are they new doors that I don’t even know exist? What is being initiated in my life right now?

Right now, the moon has moved into Capricorn. So currently, the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Pluto are all in this cardinal astrological sign. So although I had planned write about this two weeks ago, maybe I needed to write about the cardinal now.

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🔎 A little astro-primer: Cardinal signs ♈♋♎♑ in the zodiac kick off seasons of the year.

As far as I can tell, it’s just not meant to happen here. I’ve acquiesced this bitter truth because if better were here for me, better would have come.

Finding contentment in where I am right now has been a long, wearying struggle. But I’m getting close.

Yet, as I continue to journey…to remain sane, to remain peaceful, I have to trust that within the bigger picture of my life, and where it fits in the larger story of humanity–those happy relationships are out there, somewhere…

And that was the main idea of the horoscope: the cardinal for the first week of January was here to help me “renew my faith in love.”

So at the time when I read this, seeing that bird, I felt a lot of hope for the year. Like maybe, just maybe, things are going to go better this year. I’m a year wiser, at the very least.

But did I have faith in love? Is love going to arrive?

Isn’t love already here?

When I ask that, I do mean that in a general sense, but the horoscope has a reason for its wording.

So what is the message that the cardinals have for me?

I am made for relationships.

This was going to be in another blog post, but since this horoscope truly is about relationships, I might as well share now.

I have seen in my natal chart how relationships are so important to me.

Juno conjunct Sun

If you know your Greek mythology, Juno is Jupiter’s (aka Zeus’s) long-suffering wife. So this asteroid is about committed relationships. She touches a few of my planets. She’s conjoined to my sun, Mercury, and Venus, opposes my Jupiter (how fitting), and trine my Saturn.

A while ago, I had ordered an Astrological Goddess Powers Report from Tarot.com, and from it, I got this bit about Juno conjoined my sun:

“Juno, archetype of the wife and partner, unites with the symbol of your basic identity and conscious purpose [the sun]. An important part of your life revolves around developing meaningful, committed long-term partnerships.”

All to say, too–that Juno touches so many of my planets really screams at me that committed relationships are things I shouldn’t be ashamed of.

North node in Libra

Last year, I read Astrology for the Soul by astrologer Jan Spiller. It slayed me. I didn’t really want to hear this about myself, how I was destined to be in partnership.

But first, another little astrological primer…

The lunar nodes

The moon’s nodes, North and South, are places on the moon which show where the moon has crossed the ecliptic–the sun’s perceived circular path (it’s a star, so it doesn’t move).

When you are born, the moon’s nodes will be in two opposite signs. Right now, they are in Leo (north node) and Aquarius (south node), which are also the signs we had the recent lunar (in Aquarius) solar eclipse (in Leo) in August 2017. Soon, they will be in Cancer and Capricorn (the nodes are always going backwards).

Clear as mud? Don’t worry about it. What’s more important is what the lunar nodes symbolize.

The south node symbolizes the lessons you’ve learned in previous lifetimes. The north node is your destiny, the lessons you’re supposed to learn in this lifetime.

For me, my south node is in Aries, and my north node is in Libra. And yes, that’s more cardinal energy in my chart.

Aries is the warrior, Libra is the diplomat. So my north node’s mission is to go from wartime to peacetime.

One thing I used to think before reading Astrology for the Soul was that I had already arrived at my north node. I didn’t know that the north node symbolized a journey of soul evolution. So you can call me a recovering Aries.

Here’s what Spiller has to say about NN in Libra folks, which is what I believe sums us up perfectly: “Consistently, the solution for these people is partnership.”

My life’s journey is to go from me me me to we we we. And it’s scarier than I thought.

There’s a bit of shame that comes with this placement, of needing anyone, of being vulnerable. Warriors don’t need, they lead. They’re totally fine helping others, but receiving that help seems like a failure, a display of weakness. It’s also a paradoxical losing game for everyone.

Even as I’m typing about partnerships and relationships right now…even though I need them as a human being in order to thrive, still feels…strange. But other parts of my chart still say, even if I feel weird and conspicuous–this is what I was made for.

Scorpio Midheaven

I did a long Twitter thread in October on the Scorpio midheaven, so I won’t go over all that material again.

The main point about this deep, watery placement (which is somewhat similar to the lunar nodes, as it is another journey from the past to a future destiny) is about Scorpio’s longing for intimacy.

The midheaven is about your life dreams and how you want to live your life. Scorpio wants to seek the truth (although they don’t necessarily want this reciprocated in their lives! They are secretive mofos.) and wants to fully know another person.

Scorpio MC’s can set their sights on another person and just relentlessly (with consent, of course), dive deep into them. That other person will just feel instantly and fully known. It’s quite uncanny.

Even if I fear getting lost in someone else, I do enjoy getting to know people on a deeper level. I prefer it.

Full moon in Cancer, in the 7th house

Full Moon individuals are here primarily to explore the dynamics of relationship and constantly seek/ attract key partners. It is through the learning and awareness that arises out of being in relationships that Full Moon individuals find meaning and satisfaction in their lives.

She goes onto say how full moon folks are constantly working through the “tension of opposites” and will seek people different from them. “It’s a lifetime of illumination,” she writes.

Cancer as a zodiac sign is ruled by the moon, so the moon is at home in Cancer. Cancer folks are highly intuitive and emotional–and, like the glyph shows, that can make them a little crabby and overly sensitive at times.

Cancer is the momma of the zodiac (which, yes, makes Capricorn the daddy). They are hella nurturing, which shows up in their cozy homes and comfort food. They love to take care of their loved ones.

The unglamourous flipside is that Cancer peeps can use those crabby claws and hold onto people and things a little too long.

The 7th house, also known as the descendant (conversely, your ascendant or rising sign is the 1st house), in a natal chart is the house of partnerships and one-on-one relationships.

Dark Pixie Astrology describes this house as a place that shows you what kind of people you’re attracted to, your ideals and expectations about marriage and business partnerships, and your feelings about commitment. This house also holds your open enemies–eep!

The 7th house is where my Jupiter in Cancer also resides and is conjoined with my moon–so imagine expanded intuitive abilities and emotions, for better and for worse.

Saturn’s calling…

Even still, I didn’t know I was going to write about this today. Lately, I had been thinking about the state of all of my relationships, about how Saturn was opposing my moon and Jupiter.

It’s feeling like with these oppositions, Saturn is asking me to examine how good–or not–do I really have it with people who are close to me.

What patterns of “putting up with other people’s bullshit” am I still unconsciously holding onto? How can I restructure my own self-worth (in the 1st house of self) and have that be reflected in my close relationships (7th house)?

I realized today that I’m still not where I want to be with the people who are around me right now.

There’s been chasing, waiting, flailing, abandoning, worrying, pining and other kinds of gerunding that I don’t have to settle for any longer.

There’s also the actions of others that just don’t feel they come from a place of mutual respect.

A little inconsideration. A little arrogance. A little short-sightedness.

A little, a little, a little–a whole lot of a little.

So I still could use some renewal–like right now.

A very moony supermoon

I also brought all those other astrological aspects up because this horoscope was most likely was talking about the full supermoon in Cancer that happened on New Year’s Day.

And, now you know that the moon was in the 7th house for Capricorns and those with a Capricorn ascendant. 🌝

Full moons are seen as a time of releasing and renewal. They shine a light on the people, places, things, and ideas that no longer serve us.

To have a full moon in Cancer, my natal placement, at the very beginning of the year, with a very moony moon way to let go of the painful junk of 2017–it definitely made me take notice, and it’s still making me take stock.

And maybe because Saturn is around and at home in Capricorn, I don’t feel as doomed to be the lonely warrior. I can have faith that the journeys I’ve been taking, within and without, have brought me here, in this expanding sense and feeling of stability.

But with that bright red faith, there’s always reason to shroud myself in doubt.

My perceived pride, my actual shame

I remember telling this former friend how I had prided myself on my friendships, and this was during basically a friendship break-up that she had initiated.

She shook her head no.

Granted, it really was for the best, our parting. Where I was in my life, I really needed the support of friends that wasn’t about keeping a scorecard of how much one person was doing for another–something NNs in Libra are prone to doing themselves.

It was a stinging bit of a humiliation, those words contrasting to what was happening.

But years later, the drive to truly connect with another person, even as I sit on a newer heap of current humiliations and losses, hasn’t really waned.

I just have to continue to work on that shame part.

A family of cardinals

As I was writing this earlier today, I decided to try to take a picture of the cardinals that hang out in the backyard. In that crazy sweet almond bush, there were way more cardinals than I realized–maybe six, three males and three females.

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Someone on twitter told me that cardinals also represented prosperity. A while ago, I had a cardinal land on my window, vertically, grabbing onto the window screen. It was there for maybe a couple of seconds. I think it took a huge dump on my window, too. It was an insane moment, like that bird was coming for me.

Cardinals are known to attack reflective surfaces, such as side view mirrors (I know this from experience!) because they are trying to protect their nests and view their reflections as competing males.

Still, I never thought of cardinals beyond a prosperous sign and a protective papa until January 1st.

As I write this, it really hasn’t fully sunk in how I have a large family of spirit messengers living in my backyard. But what it reminds me of is a recent tarot 12-month reading I did for a friend on Thursday.

The card 5 of Pentacles came up. It’s not the cheeriest card. In the traditional imagery, there are two people in tattered clothing, out in the snow, looking worse for wear. One is barefoot and the other has bandaged feet and is on crutches.

The five pentacles are gleaming in the stained-glass windows of the church that these two people are passing. I first felt to tell my friend that he should stop hanging outside the church, go in, and get what he needs. But I didn’t. It felt a little too forward. I did emphasize that he didn’t have to suffer alone, that he should ask for help.

He then described that his friend said over Christmas this card meant that everything that you need is right there, but you’re choosing not to go inside. That was confirmation, so then I told him what I should have said earlier.

Like the church in the 5 of Pentacles card, this flock of cardinals has always been here. I just never noticed, or knew to notice. I would watch them on occasion with amusement, as they hop and fly around on the fence, flitting and flirting.

Until today, I never knew they were really all just hanging out in that messy bush. And until today, I didn’t realize that I was outside a church that had all I needed, while I was hobbling by, cursing the snow and cold.

So the question bears repeating:

Isn’t love already here?

Yes, yes it is–and in abundance.

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Write it down, make it happen?

I’m going to spoil the end of the work-in-progress I started in grad school and worked on during #NaNoWriMo for the past two years.

The last word is dream.

Dreaming hasn’t come very easily for me for the past few years. It’s been a “just the facts, ma’am” Saturnian life. Chop wood, carry water, try to make it through the day.

Try to remember to be grateful.

Try not to drown in the bitterness of life.

Try to keep your head up.

Try.

Writing this novel started off as an assignment for my fiction workshop and as a way to understand a ghosting that happened with some guy from Twitter. It ended up being a needed escape, a needed healing, and possibly a conjuring of the life that I want–beautiful transformative relationships with others.

That last part still freaks me out, especially since a lot of it was written before things started happening in my life, but that’s part of the beauty and magic of fiction, even more so than creative nonfiction, my speciality.

I’m not sure when or where I realized how dreamless my life has been, but I’m sure when I finished the first complete draft of my novel, I realized that I don’t have many dreams of my own anymore.

I may have said this before here, but it’s a realization I keep coming back to: after grad school and writing my thesis/memoir, I felt like I had come to do what I was born to do. It was the toughest mountain to climb, a mostly solo journey, and I reached the summit.

I was done with my life’s work at age 36. And I haven’t even worked on it or published it yet.

So ever since then, I have been coming down, or I’ve been rolling down the mountain like a nonstop avalanche of loss, a loss I keep talking about even though most of it is over. That’s how trauma works. It’s also because it’s been unfathomable, even when I list everything I lost…

What matters now: I survived it all.

It was the a hefty price I paid to write my life story and to follow my dreams to become a writer and editor without much support.

So now what?

I feel like I have written this post before, because my life seems to be revolving around what seems to be a swirling empty space, the seemingly elusive domestic life that I thought would be pretty easy to obtain.

Surprise, a double Capricorn overcomes overwhelming odds in her professional life while her personal life looks like a life after a major storm.

It’s a pretty boring story that needs a re-write.

—

It’s all in the gotdamn timing.

Last Monday, I was talking to my long-time friend who has been my partner in spinsterdom. She and I met in church in Chicago. We used to sing together on the worship team, and we got back in touch a few years ago.

A full moon in Cancer, talking to my Cancer friend while watching The Bachelor with salt-and-pepper dreamboat, Arie. The way that dude kisses alone–it should be patented and taught…

Anyway, I knew the holidays were going to bittersweet for both of us, and in some ways, even more so for my friend. So I wanted to check in her dating adventures and just her in general (she had back surgery late last year, right before a couple of big runs for charity).

She has a big family with all her younger siblings being married, two of them with kids. I’m pretty sure all of her other close friends are married or will soon be married (she told me about three engagements over the holidays (cliche, cliche, cliche)).

It really stinks if you want to be “there” and you’re “here,” alone.

She and I are at that point where we’re pretty fulfilled people. I’ve lived a pretty full life already and I’m grateful for all the adventures Chicago gave me. I only wish I traveled more, but my life isn’t over yet.

My friend is in management in a therapist group. She has a great church, great friends, loves to run for charity–you can see all that and more in her annual holiday card.

And I don’t really mean to exalt marriage and family as “the” thing. My thing was and is writing. I believe her thing is being in service to children. I really believe you need to have a thing that has nothing to do with any life partner or spouse.

But if I have to be Jupiterian/Sagittarius about it, marriage and family is the next thing I want to experience. There are things I want to do, and maybe even need to do, in that social construct that I can’t do myself.

Can I get even more esoteric and spiritual and weird about this? I feel like I’ve met two of my kids already, in spirit.

To sidetrack myself even more, I have realized during my sojourn in Florida how little I could do without help, and how easy it was to be forgotten. There’s always an assumption that your family of origin will be there for you, especially during the holidays. It’s like an umbilical cord that is never quite fully cut.

Mind you, I’m not really comparing being single to being completely forgotten, though. I’m just layering on the lack of community part that I’ve experienced that my friend has not.

But at the same time, let me be super blunt here: loneliness kills. Even still, as a single person, you can totally have your peeps, your tribe, and not need the life-draining addition of a marriage (I’m saying that for women, since for men, it adds life expectancy).

So let me get back on track as to why I’m bringing all this marriage and family stuff up in the first place.

I got caught up on my friend’s dating life–it was more of the same. Close, but no cigar in terms of spiritual connection. She really wants an “on fire for God” Christian, and I want that for her, too. If it’s that important to her, then it’s that important to God (until she says it’s not) and she should not settle.

But the woman she met back in the early aughts is not the woman I am now. If my relatively short track record of dating is any clue, both serious relationships I had were with men who were in the fringes of Christianity–pondering, questioning, unsure. I don’t think either of them are in church anymore either.

In talking to her about where I was at, all the unrelentingly cruel shit I went through since 2012, even being in this crazy house, has brought me to a spiritual plane where I need to be.

(I knew one day I’d see that, but not while I’m still in it. So I am super hella grateful for this early hindsight.)

It’s hard to learn about boundaries when everyone is respectful of yours.

It’s hard to learn about relying on the Universe when everyone has your back and all your needs are met.

It’s hard to learn about kindness when you’re in no place to really receive it or need it.

It’s hard to learn about humility if you haven’t been humbled over and over.

It’s hard to see through evangelicalism if you’re not on the outside of the church, looking in.

All the spiritual practices I have learned have been out of desperate necessity. I bought my first crystals while living with a crazy Pisces. I burned sage for the first time when I was in a shady Airbnb placement and a cop came banging on the door of a man wanted for child support. I continually reached out to tarot readers and astrologers when my life yielded more questions and confusion than answers and clarity.

So, if I had gotten married to some “on fire for God” Christian man when I thought I would (around 30), I wouldn’t be here–which, well, living here sucks. But I wouldn’t be me. I don’t think a marriage could have survived the hell I went through, that I seemingly needed to go through.

That’s really sobering, because I didn’t sign up to give up my Christian faith (or, more likely, greatly expand it). To put this in astrological terms, not only did my Saturn return revamp what I was to do vocationally, it also radically revamped where I was headed philosophically and spiritually.

And this isn’t to say I went through all this so I can finally get a man. I don’t think this was about me becoming a better life partner, but becoming a better person. My 30s were a decade of deep reinvention, and most of my relationships did not survive the changes. And, they weren’t built for that, especially in the evangelical realm with its brittle dualism.

But what I thought was an easy dream, heck, even an inevitability, has started to become multivariate and more intricate (and that’s usually the case anyway, since all dreams involve more than one person).

I can finally say, with at least partial recognition and growing gratitude: the Universe cockblocked me for a reason–for a lot of good reasons.

I shared all that–well, not all, but the gist of it–to my friend while we’re growing bored and restless and frankly, a little sad and forlorn, in the waiting room of life, waiting for the next phase to begin. It may not even be about us being ready for what we want and need, but that our wants and needs to be readied for us.

This is so easy to forget while we all have our own separate and yet collective journeys, as we drown in self-help and personal development and gurudom and advertising that’s saying that you lack this one key thing.

Most of the time, it’s really just patience and compassion for yourself, because the waiting and wanting and desiring is neverending. It’s always something….

As the dust settles on this life renovation, I can start to see who is going to to stick around (well at least who I want stick around) in this newer, truer version of my life. For now, I’m almost done battling the hierarchy of needs war and am walking into the cozy, comforting warmth of peacetime, finally.

—

The luxurious energy and the utmost necessity of dreams – a paradox

Dreaming seems like a luxury when you’re worried about your car being repossessed or where you’re going to sleep the next night. But dreaming is essential, because it can’t be chop wood, carry water endlessly.

Being a writer was a dream. Going to the University of Chicago was a dream. My first boyfriend was a dream that I didn’t even know could exist.

There’s got to be something else that gets you up in the morning besides that there’s this golden ball in the sky peering into your room with light which is getting into your eyes.

Last week, I went to Tarot.com and bought a past life astrology report based on the teachings of Edgar Cayce, a 20th-century American Christian mystic.

One natal aspect jumped out at me–how Mars, the planet of energy, power, action, and desire, is in a harmonious relationship (or trine) with Neptune, the planet of illusion, dreams, psychic abilities, and spirituality.

With the spiritual protection which surrounds you, together with your integrity and strong compassion, you are a practical idealist who can “dream true.”

That is, rather than being deceived or deluded by your dreams and visions, you can be guided by and act decisively upon your dream, meditation and prayer experiences. This unique quality gives you great potential for much-needed spiritual leadership in the present.

I remember my first Aquarius best friend/emotional boyfriend telling me how he was a reluctant idealist. Or did I tell him that’s what I was? However that came about, 20 years later that has stuck with me.

Dreaming can be a little dangerous and wild, and those two dear children of Saturn were a little wary of letting our guards down and letting hopes and dreams for ourselves, and the world, run amok.

And maybe we should have. We may have learned that our dreams are truly trustworthy.

—

In dreams begin responsibilities (a dance between Saturn and Jupiter)

It’s Capricorn season, and good ole Father Time/Saturn has returned to his kingdom, getting the lay of the land, surveying what needs to stay and what needs to be rebuilt in our individual and corporate lives.

And Saturn pulls no punches. There is no sugarcoating in what Saturn finds, whether it’s wrong–or right. Though I was glad that Saturn left the loosey-goosey confines of Sagittarius, it has not been a happy Capricorn season for me.

But Saturn isn’t really here to make me happy, but to make me better.

Now that I’m 40 (and I have to write about the mindfuck this number is next week), I don’t want to dream to simply escape the drudgery of my life. I want to dream to build real and true things because life is short.

Dreaming takes energy, and a little bit of faith and hope. I’ve had to focus on other things for so long, it feels weird to return to the waking land of dreams (Astrological sidenote: my solar return moon is a Pisces moon, so this year is a dreamy time for me indeed).

Part of me is still exhausted from grad school and the years after it–exhausted and a little afraid.

What if I dream and receive another dream deferment? Can I dare to dream again?

I had no idea what my life would be like post-grad school. Writing that thesis was the thing for me. I gave birth to the biggest dream that I have ever dreamed in my life. It’s really hard to pivot from that to think about another dream, big or small.

I knew that didn’t really want to stay in academia and that with whatever work I found, I wanted to be able to support myself. But that was it. I didn’t have a plan for it.

I had a very ambitious plan for being a child psychiatrist and my life after that. It’s a dream, although deferred and now dead, I haven’t forgotten. It was structured and safe.

But the Universe wants much more for me.

So since 2014, I’ve been a bit of a lost seagoat, wandering around in the IKEA of life choices. Capricorns and other Saturn-influenced people do not like wandering nor wondering nor being lost nor any sort of confusion.

But not all who wander are lost–at least according to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Still, even in my wondering and wandering, the things I want and desire really haven’t changed much since I wrote them down when I was 12–and ultimately, it’s having good people in my life. Besides having a connection with God, that was the basis of why I loved Christianity so much, the insta-community that seemed to occur with shared faith and values.

Jupiter, the planet of expansion and more more more, is transiting in deep-feeling and probing Scorpio. That planet has been in my 11th house of community and friendships. With this transit, it feels easier to think about the community I want to be a part of, that I am already a part of.

I want to build real and true relationships with people meant for me, even as, and definitely because, the world is seemingly imploding in rage, war, abuse, narcissism, cruelty, and neglect (or, it’s always been this bad, but we are just more aware now).

Beyond that, and those kids that keep popping up in my consciousness, and other places and people that the Universe seems to keep pointing me towards, that’s all I’ve got. That’s all I have energy to hold space for right now.

And honestly, it’s enough…for now. I’m saying that mostly for my benefit, since at times, I’m sad and bewildered that I’m not feeling that ambitious anymore.

Yet if I look back with a more discerning, compassionate eye, all that I have seen, done, and endured–it may not have equaled to fame, fortune, and fun. What it did was create a solid foundation for the good life to come–even if it scares me to say that life will be good soon.

Go beyond…

Beyond my life with friends and loved ones–to dream, to wonder about life…there has been so little space for that. Being in nature has helped, but to just go beyond my little neighborhood, my yard, my room…

As much as I welcome Saturn’s restructuring of my life, I also welcome Jupiter’s expansion.

As constricted and bound up as I feel right now, I know I’m going to be repotted somewhere soon and it’s a little scary to think about. Where (OK, I probably know where, but still!), when, how?

And, most importantly (in true Capricorn fashion): how much control will I have over these needed changes?

Even in the face of uncertainty, my tenuous but solemn hope is that in 2018 and beyond, I can and will start to embrace a new sense of adventure and awe, grounded in experience and wisdom.

Another old silver necklace with a bit of an out-of-focus but familiar message.

It’s been a strange season as the sun rolls this party college town Sagittarius. Besides that my birthday is coming up in 22 days, I haven’t been feeling that festive.

There’s a danger in this lull–or usually, there would be. The danger is to reach out for new experiences, at almost any cost. Especially in Sag season. Sag things are about accumulating experiences.

And besides that I have just been trying to survive for the past few years, I haven’t felt much drive to accumulate experiences.

Yet, despite my lack of luck in most areas of my life, I’ve been lucky with travel. This year, I visited Tampa for a short day trip in April. I’ve driven over 1000 miles from Miami to D.C. in May. In August, I went to St. Pete right before the solar eclipse. In September, I visited Chicago for almost two weeks to avoid Hurricane Irma. And, I will hopefully will travel again for my birthday.

Beyond that, though, with the upheaval at home that has been here since May, I don’t really have much drive to try to accomplish something big.

After grad school, I felt like I had come on earth to do what I had to do–write my memoir. It’s not published yet, and it probably won’t be until my parents are dead (don’t want to deal with the immigrant parent blowback).

It’s weird to feel done at age 36.

And then there’s been more life lived, a lot of it humiliating and harrowing. Just this summer, though, my life as a freelancing writer and editor has started to show some sort of stability. I really wasn’t planning to start my own business–even if astrologically and otherwise, it makes more sense to do that.

But here I am, with clients that are starting to look like permanent ones. I am grateful, so grateful. Twitter was a big part of finding that stability, through people and friends I’ve met just this year.

I’m now in expansive Sag season and I feel contracted. I feel stalled. I’m used to having visions and missions bigger than me, consuming me.

The one thing that’s left in my life that I want to do or experience, no one wants to engage me on, which I am taking as a sign to not talk about anymore. So, I’ll spare you, too–and spare myself the embarrassment of glazed-over eyes and silence.

Maybe because I have experienced so many things already–and a lot of them haven’t really been uplifting–I have a small fear of planning anything.

What would be the point of planning if the Universe is just going to do this?

My time here was supposed to be missional. I thought I was signing up for finding my people, my tribe. I got the “Everybody Hates Me” sign-up sheet by mistake.

Besides that Florida is just a tough state to live in, and that I was really awakened to my own proximity to white supremacy (you can never be that close to it before it tries to bleach you)–I still had some hope, some stupid, unflagging hope that this was my home.

Thankfully, and most mercifully, that hope is dead now.

But to be in the holiday season and not really feel anything, not the sense of wonder or the beginning bubbles of joy percolating–I don’t even feel any hatred toward it…it’s a little scary.

I’m used to feeling inspired and awakened to big things. But my life has gotten so small, I could fit it in a pocket.

I wasn’t created for a small life–only an ever-expanding one.

I’ve gone ’round and ’round with trying to create a community for myself here, but nothing takes. There are loved ones across the country and around the globe, but nothing for me here.

Maybe this is what “chop wood, carry water” looks like. It’s not scaling a mountain or fording a stream. It’s very unglamorous, building my business and rebuilding my life. But it’s worth it.

There are times that I see people doing fun, exciting things, and I think, I should be out there doing those kinds of things. But then I think, with whom?

When I was doing NaNoWriMo this year, I got jealous of my main characters. They were doing exactly what I want to do now, exactly what no one wants to hear about. They were having a lot of fun, a lot of fun that I was used to having.

Being stuck in a cycle of poverty, I just haven’t had the space for fun, for mirth, for frivolity, for silliness. But both cycles–of poverty and over mirthlessness, are coming to an end–thankfully and most mercifully.

Even now with this one thing that no one wants to hear about, I remember having people in my life who wanted to hear about that stuff. I remember having people wanting to fully engage with my life. I remember being so irreverent, laughing at my calamity and pain because I knew I would eventually conquer them.

Now I feel like a spinning top that has been at rest for a while. There’s a deep level of inertia that I can’t Capricorn my way out of. I can’t act upon myself. It’s almost comforting, because I don’t really know what I’m missing.

I’m waiting on the Universe for clarity, for these synchronicities that fly around my head like annoying gnats to come into form. I’m waiting for the neon “open for business” sign to click on. I see it flickering…

Maybe it’s not that I am not wanting anything. Maybe it’s that I want more, so much more than I have ever had. I want to be engulfed by something bigger than writing my memoir, than getting through grad school, than pure survival mode for years.

I want to drown in something new.

I know what that new thing is, but I don’t know how to get from here to there–safely. I don’t feel compelled to start shaking every tree and trying to figure out what I should be doing. That’s how I usually would do it.

If I have to use a big term like paradigm shift, then that’s what this ole sea goat will have to use.

It’s about receptivity. It’s about active waiting. These are cringey, uncomfortable things, because it looks like learned helplessness. It looks like depression. It looks like like I’ve given up.

But, I haven’t. I’ve probably doubled down more than anything.

It’s also about just connecting with the Universe and saying, “I’m tired. I don’t know what the fuck is going on or where I’m headed. I want this thing and I don’t know how to get it. Please help me get it.”

So maybe I’m not aimless in archer season. Maybe I’m just motionless. I’m at rest.

With astrology, planets travel through signs and the 12 houses that are in your natal chart. Right now, the sun is in Sagittarius, which is going through my 12th house of healing, intuition, secrets, dreams, and the subconscious mind. It’s like the basement of the soul, in my opinion.

It’s also a place of rest. If you’re into tarot, it’s like the 4 of Swords card to me. For Capricorns and Cap rising people, this is like the disco nap before the big birthday party. It’s very weird to be chill during Sag season when everyone else is getting their holiday party on.

There are twinges of sadness that come up when I feel waves of FOMO wash over me. But they never last. I finally have embraced that this, for now, is where I’m supposed to be. Trying to force things hasn’t worked (believe me, I tried, just last month–spectacular failure).

Even for what I want, I have an idea of what it’d be like. But who knows if I’m ready for it, or if what’s waiting for me is ready for me? There’s a lot I can’t see or know.

I don’t know how this will all turn out. A new faith is being forged and I’m flailing around with impatience.

Even though I know what I want, I am like this Camus quote above: she was waiting but she didn’t know for what.

I created this image when I was feeling a little more hopeful about my life. But now, I feel just exhausted. I just wrote this post which details some of that exhaustion, and it kind of left off at some thoughts about faith.

First of all, Richard Rohr, OFM is my favorite living Christian. Maybe he’s my favorite Christian of all time. If more Christians were like him, we’d live in a much better world. I feel like the contemplative realm of Christianity is probably the best part of it. Anyway, Rohr’s writings really helped to shape my faith as a Christian, especially in his book, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer. The book beautifully details about how joy and suffering both belong in our lives.

But let me focus on this quote and be a little astrological about it. As you probably know I am a Capricorn sun and rising/ascendant. That means upon first meeting me, you’re like. “Yep, total Capricorn.” And then, as you get to know me, you’d also realize that yes, she is a Capricorn: workhorse, kinda bossy, weird sense of humor, loyal, stubborn.

Although the rest of my chart has a lot of fire and some water, with a little bit of air, I’m pretty earthy. I need to see things. I want contracts signed. I want instant communication. I want to see it, right now.

It’s a human trait, and we all share it, but faith isn’t really like that.

Also being a Capricorn, I want to just do it myself. I’ll start the conversation. I’ll shoot my shot. I’ll convince you to do x. I’ll “push the river” as it were. And all of that is about control–I’ll control my outcomes. I want to be safe. I want to feel secure. I’ll make it happen. And so much of life contains people and circumstances that we cannot control.

This isn’t to say that faith is about passivity. This river has kinetic energy. It is moving. It’s just that I am not the one moving the river. It just goes. And there is support as I am going along with the river. I am in it. I don’t have to make sure the river was turned on before I get in my canoe.

But hey, faith ain’t easy, right? No, it’s not. It’s not meant to be easy. It’s work. It’s dedication. Sometimes, there’s the gift of faith, where we just know things will work out. It’s usually something we can hold for other people.

But most of the time, it’s a moment-by-moment experience. Sometimes, you’re just in your canoe, paddling, enjoying the scenery. Other times, you’re just trying to hold on for dear life. Right now, I have to believe that I’m even in a canoe and not just being thrown around in the rapids.

And, this has been my life, in very dramatic ways. My life story has been conquering the impossible over and over. There has been so much triumph and success–most of it hard fought. But, as I said, I’m just exhausted. And I wish I had written this post when I was traversing calmer waters, buoyed by more hope.

But the river is flowing. I am in it. We are in it. I have to trust in new ways, for bigger things, for scarier things. I have to trust in this very extensive life transformation that’s happening. I have to believe that the healing is coming, that the healing is already here and is already happening. I have to really embrace with gratitude the small, everyday joys that come my way so that I don’t become frozen in jaded ingratitude.

I have to. I have to.

I’m going to end with this song that is going to be obscure to even most white evangelical Christians, but it sums up how I feel. I may be a tough warrior, seemingly implacable and unflappable. But deep inside this armor…

“The Warrior Is a Child” is a song I grew up with (it’s from 1984), written and sung by a woman who has created a lot of Christian worship songs that people still sing today. This is a more modern version of the song and aptly has images depicting Joan of Arc.

When everything falls apart, it is a good sign that everything is about to come together.

from Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser

It’s been said that you should write from your scars, not from your wounds. Welp, this is a wound with a scab forming, and I don’t have time to wait for this to scar over.

Earlier this morning, after tossing some trash in the outside garbage bin, I walked down my now bare driveway and went to the mailbox–something I used to do every day before my car was taken back by the car lender. It was a daily way for me to stretch my legs which doesn’t happen enough for me as a writer.

It’s been raining almost daily. It’s rainy season in Florida and we desperately need the rain since we’ve had a severe drought and subsequent brush fires for months. Usually, the weather wouldn’t deter me from my daily little walk. But I haven’t been interested in getting the mail. Maybe it’s because I’m still little heartbroken.

Although the mailbox was closed, the mail was damp from all the humidity, which can reach full saturation (100%) especially in the mornings. One of the letters I received was from my now former awful car lender, telling me how much I still owe after the car was auctioned off. The amount is basically the interest of a high-interest loan, which would have been OK 9 months ago when I was working a full-time job with an employer. But that four-figure now just another drop in the ocean of debt that doesn’t even reach my shore much anymore. I live in the small lagoon of survival now.

This car situation has been a tough one to overcome, and it’s not because I no longer have reliable transportation. Sure, part of it is the pride of being a self-sustaining adult and not being able to hold onto what seems to be a basic necessity in a city that has some godawful public transportation.

Admittedly, though, when this first happened, I felt some instant relief. I no longer have to deal with this money drain for a vehicle I used like maybe 5 times a month? Based on what I make now, I can be just fine as I build my freelance writing and editing business, even with the occasional Lyft ride.

Through another bill that I’m actually fighting since I was not driving the car, my toll transponder told me when my car was taken: early in the morning, in the 1 o’clock hour. That night, I actually slept so well–how ironic.

Also, I’ve been here before, 2 years ago when I was teaching and making even less than what I make now. I could take as a moral issue in one of two ways. The first is a (self-)judgmental, (self-)blaming route–how can you have this happen to you again? You’re irresponsible with your money. The other route is just seeing the larger landscape of where I live right now. I’ve done the best I can in a shitty job market and lower income people are routinely taken advantage of. I’ll take route #2, because route #1 is a well-worn path that doesn’t head anywhere except to more heartache.

The heartbreak isn’t over the car, per se, but what my cries for help represent to me–only three people helped me: a total stranger and two friends.

My cries for help went unheard and unheeded.

There are so many reasons why: race, gender, the lack of a cult of personality online, the bootstrap mentality that isn’t applied equally. Not really here to dive into all of that, into the politics of what gets funded and why.

I’m also not here to make this about abundance, prosperity, believing enough (or not), manifestation, or any other things that many times just seem like American capitalism dressed up in spiritual garb, but has no semblance of compassion or empathy.

Over a month later, there’s quite a lot of resentment that I have to burn off or hand off to the Universe. As I try to gain a better perspective, I am accepting what is.

Simply put: no one likes being inconvenienced. That’s the ethos of America. It’s the heart of innovation, but it’s also the heart of our mores and social structure. It’s the mentality that tells you that asking for help is some sort of entitlement. Even the way Social Security is framed is as an entitlement vs. an investment that people make so that they had some income for their twilight years. How dare you ask for help for your basic needs! You should just get a job (or else you’re clearly just lazy and want a handout). There’s someone in the current administration who said just that about Medicaid recipients, millions of those being children. It’s a pervasive mindset, no matter your political leanings or religious beliefs.

What has been really hard but necessary to do is to not make this seeming failure be about me or my worth as a human being. Even knowing that culturally, there’s still a lot of shame in asking for help, this still stings, a lot. I’ve been helped in the past, so why am I feeling abandoned now?

How this all happened still marvels me, which makes me believe that something bigger is going on.

At the time I started to think about writing this particular post, I felt very broken. There are still parts of me that feel very shattered and irreplaceable. I was concerned that I was depressed–and if I was/am depressed, then of course, it makes sense after such a loss like losing reliable transportation.

Nothing seems to be going right and things seem to get worse as I spiritually grow leaps and bounds. There are synchronicities all over the place. I know that Spirit is moving in my life–and maybe it’s because of the destruction left in its wake.

Then I remembered a book that I read, Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser (yes, it’s basically a book about manifestation–but there’s nothing wrong with writing down what you want and need and leaving it up to the Universe how it provides those things to do).

Klauser has a chapter aptly called, “Handling Breakdown.” It basically talks about how things may have manifested in a way you weren’t expecting; or, if your desires haven’t come to fruition yet, that you shouldn’t give up.

Two key quotes: “There is no failure, only a delay in results.” and “There is no failure, only feedback.”

Why I remembered the book wasn’t for those quotes. It was because she talked about how when everything isn’t working out, that you are close to a breakthrough. She compared this to the process of childbirth, ten minutes before delivery which is called the “transition.” It’s the toughest part of labor.

I saw this happen recently with this reality TV star who filmed a special about her pregnancy. She wanted to have her baby at home, and while she was in labor, she hit a wall of exhaustion. She was just done, just through, no more. She got up to go to the bathroom, but before she and her midwives could leave to go to the hospital, she had the baby on the toilet!

So maybe I’m proverbially on the toilet right now, wanting to go to the hospital and have this baby of a profitable writer’s life. I know I need to keep pushing, even though I am exhausted.

So who is holding me up as I push? I do have a few good online friends that have been of great emotional support. But I have no one local like that in my life right now. Astrologically, I can easily blame this Pluto in Capricorn transit that is transforming me from the inside out, as it has run roughshod over my very essence and ethos.

This struggle is beyond the car now. Yet the car was a breaking point for me. Like what gives? I know I’m supposed to be a writer, to be a writer here. But I can’t connect to anyone permanently here. I lost my car twice. Grad school was a nightmare, so was life afterward. I’ve survived horrible living conditions–and I’m enduring one now. How many L’s can I take, and then take them like a champ?

What gives?

I’m not used to things being bad for this long, especially not with work. Eventually, I find the community, I find the better job, it all comes together. To have the reverse Midas touch is not my style. I always find help. I always Mentos commercial or MacGyver my way out of shit.

I’m super can-do-without-you, and that’s by necessity. For better and for worse, I grew up highly resilient, priding myself in not needing others. I’ve been humbled since I moved down here in 2012, realizing how I can’t be who I need to be without some help. And, for the most part, I’m actually quite OK with asking for help now, even as I face the fear of rejection.

So rejection has come and I am starting to be able to accept what is–I don’t really have the supportive community I need, not yet. I can also see the thin yet gleaming silver lining of this tough circumstance–I’m saving hundreds of dollars.

That brings me back to the spiritual support that I need to access. Yes, the loss of my car brought me to my knees. It was sad to repeat a loss like this, thinking that I would be better off this time around. Can I rejoice and be happy like Klauser says? Can I “count it all joy” like the writer James of the New Testament? Can I be grateful for my faith being tested and producing patience?

It’s really like holding onto a seedling, knowing one day it will be a tall tree. Depending on the day, the hour, the minute, I can hold onto this tiny hope or I can drop it and drown in despair.

At least in the spirit realm, I’m not alone. My cries for help were heard. I matter. To be able to really believe all of that, in the face of disappointment, of loneliness, of heartbreak–emotions I’ve felt often in my life–it takes some faith, faith at times I don’t have or want to conjure up, faith that something new is breaking through, something better that I could ever imagine.

So I have two choices. I either keep playing this shitty game of Tetris where I feel like none of the blocks are clearing, or I quit the game altogether.

I’m writing as a way to avoid some other writing. But I am a week behind here, so it makes sense to write here, too.

[The quote in the image is more aspirational than anything (You’ll see. Not there yet).]

Yesterday, I seemed to have a light bulb fire on about my life purpose with spirituality. If you want to read the poorly threaded tweets, start here. It’s an essay unto itself, but not worth regurgitating here–not yet, anyway.

Also, yesterday, I did a lot of energy work. Energy work is like body work, but, um, with energy and with your spirit? Reiki is the closest mainstream manifestation of it. I also was doing a bit of Access Consciousness stuff–and that could also be its own essay, because like with everything, there’s some stuff I agree with, and some stuff where I go–yes, the pursuit of spirituality is a human endeavor and I cannot expect everyone to get it right.

And actually, my tweetstorm last night is connected to listening/watching a bunch of YouTube videos one of the co-creators of Access, and he talks a lot about changing the world. And, through his work, I’m sure he does.

Anyway, back to avoidance. Access Consciousness is energy work, too, and I’ve never paid for any of it (it can be pricey). But I kind of forgot that it was energy work. I was just listening all day and night and then today, I got a little triggered.

I was planning on writing a lot today, doing some social media content tomorrow, and then finally, finally, working on my freelancing strategy on Tuesday. I headed out on a beautiful morning to the pharmacy to pick up some meds on sale. On my way back, I am turning into my driving and I see a white tow truck parked across the street.

That was part of the trigger. The other part was that on this fine Easter morning, my apparently disreputable car lender had called and left two voicemails, after I had written them not to do so.

I had to give up my car two years ago because I was barely making any money as an adjunct English professor and a part-time technical writer. It doesn’t sting as much anymore, but it was shame I carried around for a long time. Failing at self-sufficiency post-grad school is an albatross that seems to strangle me from time to time.

Today was one of those times.

Logically, I know that I’m not as far behind as I was back in grad school. But the lender, who has class action lawsuits against it for these harassing calls–those calls plunged my planned productive day into a deep well of anxiety that I am now just climbing out.

And what bitter irony. The very thing that would help me stay on top of my bills, working, is the very thing those calls helped to derail. And the tow truck–I can rationalize that it’s not just waiting for me. I could even used it as motivation for writing.

So, I filed a complaint because I was over this. I didn’t deserve this sort of harassment. Still, I was drowning in my anxious thoughts, thoughts don’t even have words. It was just dark and gray, full of doom and fright.

I tried to climb out of this whirlpool of fear. I had the websites opened for the first article I needed to write–a 500 word piece on posture–and then I went into pulling tarot and oracle cards for the week, playing some video games, tweeting, and listening to a podcast that plunged me deeper into my emotions.

The podcast was on daughters dealing with narcissistic mothers. I never really thought of my mother as a narcissist–a term that’s been thrown around a lot. I know my father is one (I’m sure there are plenty of Leos who are narcissists)–that was always very clear.

The podcaster is a psychotherapist, so she was clinically painting a horrible picture that I suddenly recognized. The thing is, my mom is so nice to everyone. She’s very giving and kind. But the Pisces that she is, she can get up on her cross and be a martyr every once in a while. But when this woman described some of my mother’s behaviors, I was shocked. It was hard to believe that this nice person was so…selfish.

I had just been telling a friend yesterday that I didn’t think my parents should have been parents. They should have been DINKs (dual income, no kids). But I was probably conceived 40 years ago this week. Not kidding, this week. I always thought I came a little too early for my parents’ brand new marriage, being married in a new, profoundly racist country.

So after being thrown under that revelatory rogue wave, I had to stop myself from listening to more personal development podcasts. I have a lot to sit with, between the Access stuff, the other energy work, and dealing with the truth of my mother.

Whew.

As I sip my honey vanilla chamomile tea–tea that I should drink a lot more often and a lot sooner–I think about, and have been thinking about, the strain of financial pressure and the now clear purpose of this underemployment.

Besides that I’m learning some scary, fierce radical trust in the Universe, I’m starting to realize that there’s no way I could have had all these revelations if I was working a 9 to 5, busy with friends and a relationship–you know, having what I would call a healthy adult life.

My life has been stripped down to the essentials. My world is so small.

What I’m going through is a bit like surgery. The cuts need to be made to get in there and repair those tears, or to remove the malignancies. I have been focusing on the initial incisions–not working full-time–and not what’s been happening while I’ve been under. Sometimes it feels like I am only given some whiskey and a bit of leather to bite while I’m surgery.

Yet I know that I know that I know: this is necessary, no matter what type of spiritual anesthesia I’m under. The accumulation of trauma and loss is most likely not letting me actually have that healthy adult life anyway. Just the narcissistic parents alone–that’s enough for me to take a pause, examine those gangrenous wounds, get them treated and healed once for all.

I deserve the pause. I deserve the healing. I deserve to be whole.

Last week, I was telling another friend that I was unsure if I was in a place of allowance–that this is happening whether I like or not, that I’m clearly in a season of lean, and that fighting against it is not smart–or, that I’m suffering from learned helplessness. I learned about this in college during my psychology studies.

In animal studies, which I can say in retrospect, this sounds really cruel to do–after an animal keeps getting zapped trying to reach for food or whatever else it’s trying to do, the animal stops trying. The animal study I had learned about was some rat or mouse in some water who just stopped trying to swim.

This phenomenon is a marker of clinical depression and other mental health issues. It’s like your soul becomes catatonic. What’s the point of trying, of fighting? I’ll just get zapped by Life again anyway. It can be a coping mechanism, but it’s not one anyone would want to use long-term.

Learned helplessness, ultimately, is a death sentence. Maybe literally, but definitely more figuratively. In relating to my friend, I had been scared that I wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t sure if this had all taken its toll and I wasn’t even treading water anymore. It’d make sense if my mental health has taken a beating.

And then, serendipitously, all this work was coming to me, the work that I am currently avoiding, work that I probably won’t touch until tomorrow.

So the title of this post. One of my musical problematic faves is John Mayer. He and Norah Jones, who is not problematic, are like my version of easy listening–music my dad loved to listen to after classical music and some folk music.

I can listen to this type of coffeehouse music and not have to think. It’s well-crafted, decent, inoffensive music. It’s like drinking a bunch of Coronas while sitting on the beach. You could do it all day and it wouldn’t be a big deal, although you should probably be drinking something with a little more flavor.

Anyway, Mayer has this new song called “Emoji of a Wave.” I’ve been listening to the “Wave 2” part of this album a lot, which I don’t really do with music. It’s been soothing, inoffensive, easy.

I don’t want to feel sorry for a rich white dude, but I feel like he’s so aware to the point that he abstracts and obliterates any sort of gotdamn good sense and proper self-awareness (I’m glad he’s in therapy, though–everyone should go to therapy). And, since he’s a Libra, I think he drink his own Kool-Aid a little too much and is charmed by his own words. And, he may be trying too to hard to be earnest. He has had some cringe-worthy, almost unforgivable moments.

So today, I wiped out on some emotional waves, some really irrational shit with the car payments. My mind knows that it’s not real, that I am safe and fine. But my mushy Cancer moon knows that it’s connected to how my childhood became more and more erratic and unstable. I survived it “just fine”–but these things have a way of catching up with you.

And, so, my emotions have called a work strike. I don’t blame them. With all that I’ve been processing lately, I deserve to take a break during this holiday. Maybe it’s OK to be kinder to myself.

I don’t think I’m recreating those unsure moments now to feel comfortable, but I am a little tired of being comfortable with the low-grade fever of anxiety that I’ve lived with for years down here, riding these undulating waves of chaos and panic. But as I keep telling myself and others–I signed up for this. This is me, following my dream of becoming a writer, almost 30 years too late, but right on time nonetheless.

It’s been fucking scary. Shit. And expensive. Capricorns don’t allow themselves to be scared, but the situations I had been since I moved down here? I didn’t think I signed up for all of that. Could that all have been a part of this healing process? Looking back, I can shake an 8-ball and read: Most Likely.

But it’s nowhere near as bad now.

I’m not as behind on my car payments as I had been in grad school. Somehow, the Universe keeps giving me just enough, even though I’d rather be Scrooge McDuck diving into a vault, filled with gold coins. I can’t wait to be utterly bored by stability.

So, I repeat to myself that it’s just a wave, it’s just a wave, and that I need to hold on until I can finally wash up on shore and take a real breath. I know I’m close.

Earlier today, I reached out for a tarot reading since I still feel like I’m not doing enough–even if Spirit almost screams at me that I am not blocked. Reaching out for help while I’m a lowkey panic is OK (I’m saying this more for my benefit and edification). And it always seems the act of reaching out is more important than the reading itself.

And even before I did that today, before I had my little internal collapse, I felt like if there was any learned helplessness, that it was starting to abate.

I do feel like this is temporary. I do feel like things will get better. I do feel like that I will have that so-called healthy, adult life.

Holding out hope like that feels a little less dangerous now. I just wish I could relax into the spiritual practice of living moment by moment, day by day, not anguishing over whether I will be able to pay my bills.

And it’s a lot to ask of a feeble human: to trust in supernatural beings to take care of earthly needs.

But it’s in those emoji wave wipeouts, the near drownings in bottomless wells of anxiety–

Right now, I’m writing under overhead, incandescent light and I’m going a little bonkers because of it. My day of trying to get some work done went down with the sun. It’s amazing how such a bright light always makes me go to bed early. Tomorrow, I will be heading to a coffee shop with my iPad to do work because my 4+ year old laptop has keys that don’t work + an overheating issue.

I’m not even at home. My room flooded on Monday, January 30th, and then I came to this other rental property in the neighborhood on Thursday morning, February 2nd. In between that time, the leak became like a swamp.

To see standing water in your room, and it’s not due to strong rains or a hurricane, is strange, very strange.

That was only because the carpet where the leak seemed to originate had been taken out. It was now just wood.

The water leaked out of my bedroom, into the tiled bathroom, into the roomies’ bathroom (neither of them reported the flooding at that point), and into the kitchen.

The house was re-piped and given a new hot water heater on Friday, February 3rd.

I came and took out the rest of my things on Saturday, February 4th, hoping that they would take out the carpet, too. I also vacuumed up gallons of water because the house was stinking like cat piss.

Apparently, just keeping the windows open and the fan on high would be enough. In Florida.

Granted it is the winter. Humidity is low, praise swamp Jesus. But still.

But the carpet stayed on the floor–now damp, but probably still waterlogged.

The county came and inspected the job on Monday, February 6th. The plumbers, who were so kind and friendly, came and patched up all the holes on Tuesday, February 7th.

That house has gone through plagues, and awful ownership. Today, on Saturday, February the 11th, the landlord and landlady finally took up the damp carpet. They were actually going to put new flooring in but, surprise: the tacks behind the carpet were waterlogged. They also got the wrong type of flooring.

So now my room is empty, save my closet which is tiled and never got wet–and the bathroom, which is also tiled. The room is drying some more. They will reassess tomorrow about what to do. I may get carpet again, vs. laminate.

*deep breaths*

In my heart, my mind, my soul–I know I’ll be back in my room next week. That is without a question. I will ask that the room be checked for mold because mold is nothing to fuck with.

Even if these young property owners have no real sense of urgency or true empathy to my situation, to the household’s situation, to the idea that property management is not passive income…I will be fine. I will leave as soon as possible.

But tonight, I can’t do what I fucking want to do, which is to write a bunch of articles and make money, dammit.

The moon is in Virgo right now. Virgo, a much maligned sign, is industrious, like Capricorn, but more into the details. I like doing work under Virgo moons, especially writing. Virgo is ruled by the planet Mercury, and one of Mercury’s specialties is communication–and this is why #MercuryRetrograde can suck because the proverbial socks get lost in the dryer–or, um, emails get lost in the interwebs.

The moon in Virgo, to me as a Capricorn, is like a sunny day in Chicago, or a low humidity day in Florida–you do not waste those. You find some reason to go outside, even for a few minutes to enjoy your good fortune.

But alas, I’m just uncharacteristically scatterbrained (unlike writing this blog post under the overly bright light in this temporary housing situation–I’m oddly focused).

I think what’s going on here is that my Cancer moon has just decided that I need to stop being so resilient and be not OK with it.

There was a moment today that I almost cried–but I learned from a writing assignment I did a couple of days ago that at least according to science, crying isn’t really that helpful in making you feel better. Sometimes it can make you feel worse.

If I cry about this, it’d be about the sheer absurdity of my life right now. My life has been farcical for quite some time. But how is being underemployed for months not a common American experience? Even me having such a rough time in Florida isn’t uncommon. So many Uber drivers told me how tough it was to make it down here, and how some folks would go back to where they came from.

It’s been a bit of a slow death spiral. But I think I’m tired of feeling like I’m going to die if things don’t work out soon, even though there’s no more unemployment insurance until later October of this year. Until like a few minutes ago, my fundraiser had stalled. I had a string of job rejections last week. My car is 2 months behind and counting in payment, but by now I always seem to catch up to just be a few days behind.

Here comes the fear again, threatening to take me into the next life.

This managing editor position wants ANOTHER writing exercise, due Tuesday. I now have nine writing assignments due pretty soon, which hey–those actually pay, so I’m grateful.

So there goes the doom, rolling away. I’m still in this.

Yesterday, I received a great tarot reading with Jessi Huntenburg , which you should do RIGHT NOW since these specific Leo Full Moon tarot readings end today.

I asked about work. Work will be fine. I will probably look at the reading again after I am done writing this post, since there are some things I can still do.

In my scattered state, I started to go through emails about jobs, to really tune into what I could be doing. Or, more like to shut up the ever-loud voices of fear and doubt. Am I off track? I really am feeling this managing editor position, but I feel so many things that never become the full, ripened fruit.

The freelance stuff is slowly starting to come together, but it’s not like pay all my bills come together.

I’m not frightened. I’m not tired. I just can’t think my way out of this, as much. Stress literally stupefies. My thoughts are short-circuiting–and not in a depression way. That I know. I’m lucid, but this problem is just not being solved tonight.

I think the room flooding just broke me. Not in a soul-crushing way–my soul is flat as a crepe. More like it broke my brain.

Shit is not working–my brain, and my life.

So, I’m considering and reconsidering options, but mostly, I feel like I need to get back in balance. There’s been a lot of doing, calling, applying…not a lot of seeking Spirit.

For example, after I messaged Jessi that I wanted a reading from her, an old client popped back up that day. I’ve seen that if I reach out for answers, many times things will start to shift before I get the reading. So this was one of those times. It was confirmation that I was to ask for insight, even though I know deep down things will work out. The details? The ETA? The messenger? I’ve no clue about all that.

Even more so seeking without, it’s seeking within–my spiritual posse. Specifically, Archangel Ariel is my girl right now. One of her specialties, besides being an earth mama of sorts, is provision–especially when you’re in a jam. Every time I ask, work shows up. Today, I asked for more, and then an assignment came for more money that I’m used to.

I do not have to do this alone.

And then there are my guides. I have four. I feel weird talking about guides because I’ve been really resistant on this topic. It still seems made up and fictional.

But still: one is a friend who passed years ago (I’m spoken about him before), and the other three are just people–two men, two women in total. They have been hanging back. They used to be more in my face. I will seek them out, tonight.

So yeah, it’s angels and guides and Spirit…and Capricorns are spiritual. We’re sea goats after all–climbing the highest of heights, but having reached the deepest of depths with our little fish tails. Sometimes, we forget our sea origins. So sometimes, we get sent floods (I guess).

And yes, I’ve hit a new bottom–I’m living with strangers, albeit nice ones. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me financially–and after months of swimming in the unknown, I’m tired of feeling disoriented. And today had me shook up a bit.

But.

At least now, I have this meetup group of people I meet with every week. I’m starting to actually be seen and heard and missed and thought about, in my town, as I have desired and wanted and needed. I think it’s given me a bit of a psychic grounding.

I need to take the rest of the night to get it together–or get closer to some semblance of “together.”

It’s OK that my head is a fucking mess. It’s OK that things aren’t computing anymore. It’s OK that I hit a wall not only emotionally, but also just with my levels of life comprehension.

Shit is just not making sense. So, bring on the divine intervention! Turn on the light bulbs (unlike the awful one I’m sitting under right now).

It’s all relative, but it’s been hell for me.Yet even still, I’m fed, clothed, and housed. I have transportation. I have people who love and care about me in my life. It could be a lot worse. I have experienced a lot worse. So it’s not about the circumstances.

This journey isn’t about whether I get that managing editor position or not. It’s about figuring out how to get through life in general, identifying who my people are right now and sticking by them as they stick by me. Whether that’s in the spiritual realm or the earthly realm–doesn’t matter.

There are people who exist who are on my side and who want to help me.

And sometimes, as cliche as this sounds, you have to get jostled around to figure out what really matters. And this lesson didn’t come riding on a big horse, announcing its triumphant entry into my life. It came out in a sort of mumbling to myself, as I was sitting here writing, as I had become tired of my ingratitude, tired of my tiredness.

I can now recognize and appreciate the level of strength and resilience I have in myself. I can also recognize that my Superwoman years are coming to a close…